Overview
CONNECT (Co-ordination and stimulation of innovative ITS activities in Central and Eastern European countries) is a co-operation between public authorities, road administrations and traffic information service providers. Partners from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia are working together to improve cross-border traffic and transport through implementing harmonised and synchronised ITS applications on the high level road network in this area.
CONNECT amends the six existing TEMPO projects (ARTS, CENTRICO, CORVETTE, SERTI, STREETWISE and VIKING) to the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries to ensure co-ordinated traffic management and control as well as high quality traveller information services on most important east-west road-corridors (including Pan-European corridors II, III, IV, V, VII and X) in an enlarged Europe. CONNECT started formally in May 2004 with its first phase focusing on studies, feasibility studies and first pilot projects/ demonstrations.
CONNECT focuses on the harmonised implementation of Distance Related Road Pricing (DRRP) systems, traffic information services and traffic control activities in the EU countries. The goal of CONNECT is to work out decision guidelines and concepts as a basis for harmonised system implementations in the CONNECT area.
The CONNECT objectives can be summarised according to the key objectives identified in the Multiannual Indicative Programme (MIP) 2001-2006 for TEN-T - Group 4 (CONNECT is not part of the MIP but its work programme is conform with the MIP projects): Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in the road sector (TEMPO - Trans-European Intelligent Transport Systems Projects): “to stimulate a harmonised and synchronised deployment of ITS systems and services on the Trans-European Road Network (TERN) and to contribute to convergence between national/ regional planning and the overall implementation of the Information Society in the road transport field in Europe”.
CONNECT objectives are in detail:
- Integration of the new EU members in ongoing European initiatives
- Stimulation of the co-operation between the CONNECT partners and the existing projects of the TEMPO programme and related working groups (e.g. TMC Forum, DATEX2 Technical Committee)
- Fostering cross-border co-ordination of strategies, systems and services (e.g. Traffic Management Plans)
- Optimisation of the use of road capacity by implementing innovative cross-border ITS applications
- Stimulation of investments in (national) ITS infrastructure
- Improving the safety of road users
- Improving the efficiency of traffic flows and tackling congestions by harmonised cross-border traffic management and control strategies
- Reducing the travel time of road users by providing them with accurate, timely and relevant information as well as by providing cross-border services (e.g. RDS-TMC, web-based services)
- Fostering urban/ interurban interfaces to ensure fluent traffic flows between the high level and the connecting road network
- Launching projects to foster the ‘interconnect ability’ of transport modes to achieve inter-/multimodal door-to-door services
- Improving of interoperability between national EFC systems at least to achieve basic pre-conditions for interoperable road user charging
- Harmonisation of national system architectures to avoid new borders between the CONNECT member states as result of non-interoperable national telematics systems
Focus on:
- Traffic Information Services
- Traffic Management Services
- Freight and logistics services
- Efficiency of ICT Infrastructure
Funding
Results
From the years 2004 to 2009, the EasyWay CONNECT project, together with other Euro-regional projects, achieved successful results in improving road safety, in implementing traffic information and management services, in installing advanced traffic and weather monitoring systems and in promoting new ICT and ITS technologies applications, which focus particularly on tackling traffic problems in Eastern parts of Austria and Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, as well as Slovenia.
The continuous actual and expected road traffic increase will continue, even if other transport modes are strongly fostered. As highlighted by the EasyWay document, “roads remain by far the most relevant mode for transport in Europe with international traffic and transport rising at a faster rate than national traffic and ITS is continuing to play an important role on mitigating the negative effects of the increasing role of road demand”. New elements of the EasyWay programme, like quantitative and measurable results towards objectives, integrated pan-European approach on network operations and a supporting EasyWay secretariat function, have removed doubts from policy and decision makers within the EC on the effectiveness of Intelligent Transport Systems and Services (ITS) deployment.
The following ITS applications and services have been deployed in the CONNECT area throughout its duration:
- SWIS - The Austrian Road Weather Information System
- eCall - pan-European in-vehicle emergency call system in the Czech Republic
- VESUV - System for the visual monitoring of situation, accidentsand traffic condition in Germany
- Implementation of a traffic control and information system using VMS on a selected section of the motorway network in Hungary
- NewTownPass - contactless tolling on Italian Motorways
- Electronic Fee Collection in Slovenia
- Implementation of Public RDS-TMC service in Slovakia
- Fixed data capture stations and control systems in Poland
Due to the high number of deployments (and related preparatory work) performed in various domains, a selection was done just to mention major ones. The presented projects vary from mature systems for traffic data detection to an emergency Call pilot implementation or a roll-out of RDS-TMC in order to provide European Travellers with language independ
Technical Implications
n/a
Policy implications
In June 2006, the White Paper mid term review document (“Keep Europe moving”) was issued and reasserted the objective of road safety and congestion reduction, plus the promotion of energy efficiency at EU level. In addition, the concept of co-modality was introduced where each mode has to play its own role. Important items at the heart of Europe’s renewed transport policy are innovation and technology and setting Intelligent Transport Systems.
For these reasons the EasyWay CONNECT project has to continue in the next 2007-2013 EU Programme, with the objective of completing and improving the existing ITS infrastructures and applications, of identifying and implementing new available technologies, of researching and experimenting innovative tools and systems useful for road safety, and traffic management and for the co-modality needs.